I. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to methods and systems for providing a communication manager. More particularly, the present invention relates to providing a communication manager, for example, for wireless wireline converged telecommunication services.
II. Background Information
In traditional time-division-multiplexing (TDM) telecommunications networks, typically devices are simple, such as a plain old telephone system (POTS) telephone with dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) or a cellular telephone with a keypad and small screen. Control of telecommunication communication service by a POTS phone with DTMF may be cumbersome and may require an end user, for example, to know a special code to enable a feature and another special code to disable the feature. Cellular telephone devices may provide a slight improvement in capabilities over POTS by adding visual menus with “point and click” ability to enable/disable features. These capabilities, however, are typically “hard coded” into the cellular telephone devices.
Recently, voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) services have been more widely adopted. These services may allow a user to make and receive voice telephone calls and may include advance call features. Examples of the advanced call features may include simultaneous ring, sequential ring, call forwarding, call waiting, call hold, and call conferencing. A user may use a personal computer (PC) client or a web page to enable, disable, or control the advance call features. However, the marketplace is demanding converged telecommunication services, that typically require a network architecture. This network architecture may be based on internet protocol and may use multiple application servers interacting with each other to provide the converged service for an end user.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for methods and systems for providing a communication management tool to manage more advanced and more sophisticated communication services and communication applications associated with converged telecommunication services. Also there is a need for a simple user interface that simplifies the end user's ability to manage the converged telecommunications services. There is a need for this user interface at least because the converged telecommunications services can be confusing for the end-user unless there is a user interface that simplifies the end user's ability to manage the converged telecommunications services.